by Jax Garren
The muscles in the corner of Hansen’s mouth clenched in a half grimace, half smile that Javier had learned to hate. “Sorry about this. Just do something, enough to make the records work.” Hansen patted him on the back, his blue eyes as cold as his hand was hot. “Odd hours make for odd jobs.”
Javier nodded, his face tight. Pathologists typically worked nine to five, but that whole becoming-a-vampire thing this summer had forced him to work a night shift. The odd hours had become Hansen’s favorite excuse for every odd job that pulled Javier away from what he was here to do. It wasn’t the real reason, but it was a good enough excuse that other people were willing to ignore that and keep the peace.
Hansen exited, leaving Javier with the body. Dopamine, epinephrine, oxytocin, serotonin… He took a deep breath as he listed chemicals that create emotion. The amygdala released chemicals. Chemicals led to anger. Anger led to hate. And hate led to suffering. The amygdala was the path to the dark side.
Frustration somewhat in check, he took another look at the girl. The bright side to the insult was that he would do the job right—not just “enough to make the records work.” It wasn’t Jane Doe’s fault Javier was here instead of upstairs, and he knew how it felt to be unwanted. He plugged earbuds into his phone and let Kendrick Lamar soothe any remaining ire as he looked over her paperwork.
She’d died in the emergency room from internal hemorrhaging, and those five minutes under the care of a physician had her here instead of the medical examiner’s office. Bruising confirmed his initial thoughts—she’d been strangled by hand. Cigarette burns, from old to recent, and healing scars on her chest and face showed a body that was used to abuse. Not much debris under the nails or other signs of a struggle were present, like she’d just allowed the man to strangle her. Visual done, he started the incisions, using his unnatural speed to get two hours of work done in thirty minutes so he could go back upstairs. Blood and the contents of the stomach, sampled and stored for someone else to analyze, would likely come back with drugs; the instinct to fight back was so strong, it took chemical inducement to stay still while someone throttled the life from you.
Every now and then he came face to face with a reminder that the amygdala had a purpose. If she’d gotten angry and fought…well, she’d probably still be dead. But maybe not.
He stretched his neck and pushed memories aside. He was here now. Doing an autopsy on a girl from his old neighborhood. He made a note of the number on her brain tissue sample. He’d have a look at it later.
Examination done, he stitched her back up, his fingers zipping through these final steps with a practiced rhythm. The door opened as he was cleaning up. He yanked his earbuds out and fumbled with his phone, trying to get the music off as water rushed into the sink. People judged you by all sorts of stupid shit, and people expected a doctor to listen to NPR, not rap.
Another clomp of thick heels and the person stopped. “J-J-Javier?”
His heart squeezed, old scars thick and tight around it keeping its shape through pain. The broad Texas accent spoke his name with a sweet glide and a properly flipped r. He jammed the water off and turned to face his sire, the woman who’d made him a vampire. Deep-set blue eyes opened wide in a freckled face. Blonde hair tumbled to her waist in neat but imperfect waves. She looked super casual in boots, worn jeans, and a bright red tank top, and she wore no makeup. Emmaline Anne Granger looked like a tiny doll of a woman, but she was far from plastic.
She was, however, a hot mess—a hot mess he’d thought he was over. And yet his mouth went dry and his palms sweaty. He had to work to keep his eyes up on her face, every bit as lost as he had been the first time he’d seen her, and damn him for it. He swallowed. “Emma. What are you doing here?”
She blushed and her gaze went down to the floor. “I just got back a couple weeks ago. Been unpacking and… I keep meaning to call you. I just, eh…” Her accent was thicker than he remembered; then again, it had been months since he’d heard it. After a few weeks and a dozen or so unfulfilled promises, he’d stopped waiting. Waiting was for masochists.
He was a fucking masochist.
She dragged her gaze up from the floor and managed one of her brilliant, beautiful smiles.
Hell no. She’d had plenty of time for a happy reunion. He had to stop this. Create boundaries. “A month. Rhi said you’ve been back a month.”
“I’ve been working with Empower. That group I was with in San Fran? I’ve been helping them here too.” She blushed, alerting him that her next words were a lie. “That’s why it took me so long to get back here.”
He knew the gist of where she’d been from social media. She’d donated her condo in California as a residence for girls trying to escape prostitution. To him she told lies and ran confusingly hot and cold, but for the girls in her care she was a rock. He admired that about her. Not that donating a condo was much for a vampire with a two-hundred-year-old bank account, but still.
“This my girl?” Her voice softened as she looked at the body, so much compassion in her eyes.
“I got put in charge about an hour ago.” So he wasn’t exactly in charge, but if Hansen was going to stick him with a dead body, he might as well run with it. “I just finished the autopsy. Not much to go on.” He picked up the clipboard, not that he needed to read it, but it felt good to have something in his hands. “She’s… she’s one of yours?”
She dropped her backpack and pulled out a notebook, nodding before she opened it. “Jazmin Williams.” She got to the page and turned the notebook enough to be an invitation for him to come over as she made a short but terrible phone call.
Reluctantly he stepped next to her, close enough to smell cinnamon and vanilla. She was always baking, and sweetness and spice clung to her like perfume. In the many foster homes he’d lived in, only one of the fosters had baked cookies. Snickerdoodles, every Sunday. Emma always smelled like them—or she had the week they’d lived together at Cash Geirson’s after he’d turned. He didn’t really know her well enough to make sweeping generalizations.
He blew out a breath and tried not to breathe her back in. Associating Emma with a safe haven was not going to help him keep his distance.
The laughing girl in the dossier’s photo was painting her nails a Day-Glo magenta as somebody braided her hair. A purple teddy bear sat in her lap against fuzzy pink pajamas. It looked like a slumber party. No question, though, it was the Jane Doe.
“How’d she die?” Phone back in her pocket, Emma turned to him.
“Who did you alert?”
“Dez’rae Williams, next of kin.” She swallowed. “Her sister.”
Death was a lot easier when he was looking at slides on a microscope. “Did Dez’rae know her sister was a sex worker?” He chose his words carefully; two centuries before, in her human life, Emma had been a prostitute. She spoke like she was proud of her past, but here she was, getting girls out—not a sign of someone who thought hooking was fun. It was possible, though, to be proud and ashamed of the exact same thing. God knew he had plenty of that himself.
“Dezi’s an Empower girl. Been out of the life for two and a half years. Brilliant kid. Got her GED and her vet tech cert, steady job, and she’s only nineteen. I keep telling her she needs to get her undergrad, maybe go to veterinarian school so she can be in charge instead of somebody’s assistant. Anyways, she knew about Jaz.” She sighed and looked at the ground, shoulders slumped. “She knew, and she was trying to get her out.”
He liked Dez’rae already. “Jazmin didn’t fight. From what I can tell, she let a man beat her near to death and then dragged herself to a hospital.”
“Shit.” Emma rubbed her arms like she was cold. Despite the frosty room, he didn’t think that was the problem. “Eventually you learn not to fight. It’s worse when you fight.”
The emptiness in her tone pissed him off. Too many people just gave up. “Worse than what? Dead on a table?”
She huffed, dismissing him like she always did. “I don’t expec
t you to understand.”
Down, amygdala. Prefrontal cortex, back online. Don’t react. Think. Maintain control.
There had been so many times growing up that he’d wanted to quit, wanted to shut down and make the beating stop. Make the work end. Make the struggle over. And yet the only thing he’d ever learned was how to stay up later, push further, blend better. His life hadn’t become magically perfect—case in point, he was down here and not upstairs where he belonged. But even the hospital basement was a helluva lot better than selling drugs to support a baby mama or, worse, being incarcerated—once a universal prediction for where he’d be at twenty-nine.
She turned those big eyes up to him and quirked her mouth. “I’m glad you don’t understand.”
His fists clenched. Amygdala engaged. Epinephrine alert. Just breathe.
Javier Reyes. She still saw his face at night, sliding through dreams both guilt ridden and sweet. The way his smile made his eyes crinkle up, surprisingly mischievous in such a serious demeanor, made her skin feel too tight. His smile was why she’d picked him that fatal night. It was also his smile that had sent her back to San Francisco for so long.
But she was back now, and they should be friends. She owed him that. She wanted that.
Except now he looked royally pissed off. Wrong foot. Great. Arguing in a morgue next to a dead teenager was not the way she’d meant to restart their acquaintance. She should get the cookies.
“You don’t know anything about me.” His voice was cool and his shoulders were back, but his eyes burned, like he was holding a banked fire. She’d seen sparks their night together, glimpses of emotion before he’d smothered it again. It was terrible, but she had a wild need to poke at it, hoping the smolder would turn into a bonfire on her. She bet he’d be beautiful.
She mentally shook herself. The intention behind time and distance—so she’d told herself anyway—had been to get rid of those wildfires so they could start again, but right this time. She nodded her head, agreeable instead of intentionally vexing. “You’re right. I don’t.” She gave him a big smile. She was good at smiling. People liked it. It made her seem nonthreatening, and people usually smiled back. “I hope we can fix that.”
Javier blinked like she’d thrown him. “What? Why?”
Crap, he was getting the wrong idea. He’d flat out told her he was interested in more than friendship—another reason why she’d stayed in San Francisco. She didn’t need a boyfriend. Just keep smiling. “Well, I am your sire. And I’ve finally finished moving. I’m here now. In Austin. For good. Or for the foreseeable future. For good is a long time when you don’t die. Anywho, we should be friends.”
He stared at her for a moment like she’d lost her mind. Usually that didn’t bother her. Usually her diarrhea of the mouth was on purpose. Javier, though, was different from most men—or, at least, different from most men she wanted to be friends with. He was successful, he was serious, and he was nice. To most people, anyway. She’d pissed him off enough that she didn’t blame him for being prickly around her.
She had to quit poking at him.
But it was so fun.
And really, she had no idea what else to say to him. She was a barely literate whore. He was a neuro-something. They didn’t fit. But he was also the only fledgling she’d ever made, accident or not. They were family.
“So…” he finally started, and she was stupid enough to care what he said next. Any tiny, insignificant indication that he’d give her a second chance to be in his life would be enough. “Dead hooker. On the table. I don’t see premeditated here. I think her john got out of hand. She may have been doped up and not responsive. Tox reports should be back in a couple days to let us know.” His voice was so flat she felt the distance like a wall.
“Look here now, you, I wasn’t talking about Jaz, the dead hooker who has a name. And what sort of shit is that, you implying it’s her fault she’s dead ’cause she was doped up? Contrary to popular notion, most hookers don’t start turning tricks to pay for drugs. Most of us started doping after we got into the life because it was the only way to make it through sucking that much ugly dick. Your common misconception is dead fucking wrong. And anyway, because she’s high ain’t no reason why some abusive asshole can beat a twelve-year-old to death.”
Javier’s head whipped back around to the girl. “Twelve?”
“Twelve. Been in the life for almost a year now.”
“Shit.” He threw a hand up to ward off her next words, and she just managed to bite them back. “I wasn’t implying it was her fault.” He seemed to shrink just a little as he said, “When a kid gets beaten by an adult, it’s never the kid’s fault. No matter what the kid did.”
He sounded like he’d read a manual in one of his med school classes, maybe The Idiot’s Guide to Talking with Abuse Survivors, and had practiced reciting it aloud. She pursed her lips, trying to bite back yet another angry retort.
Fuck, she couldn’t do it. “Glad you got your lines down. Next time try a little emotion with your canned response.”
The fire came back to his eyes like a barely contained inferno. Her breath caught. It was demented that an angry man excited her. She should be running away. But as much as he pissed her off sometimes, she knew, without question, that Javier wouldn’t hurt her. It was rare for her to feel that safe with a man. She couldn’t tell if it was a good instinct or if she was a twit who liked his smile too much.
Didn’t matter. If she was wrong, she had two hundred years on him. She’d fold him into a pretzel and hammer his balls to the wall.
His jaw was stiff as he ground out words at her. “You want to be friends? Great. Why don’t you come to Rhi’s birthday party on Friday? It’s at the place she shares with Danielle. You can get an up-close-and-personal look at my life and see if you’re still interested.”
Now they were back to friendship? She needed a trampoline to follow his thought train. Rhi—Rhiannon Flynn—was his little sister. Emma didn’t know her very well, but she and her brother not only looked nothing alike—Rhi was white, with different-colored hair every time she saw her—but they acted nothing alike. While Javier was calm and stable with a career respected by good society, Rhi was a proud wild child. She ran the light booth for a strip club, practiced witchcraft, and dressed like a punk. Emma liked her. Or she would, if Rhiannon didn’t hate her. Not that she blamed the girl after the debacle she’d made with Javier.
He headed for the door, like he intended to walk off and leave her in the morgue. That seemed against protocol. She followed him. “Who’s Danielle?”
He didn’t pause. “The woman who’s biologically responsible for half of my deoxyribonucleic acid.”
She barely made it through the door before it shut behind them. “The woman who’s… Does that mean your mother?” That was the weirdest description for “Mom” Emma had ever heard, and working with foster kids and prostitutes, she’d heard some doozies.
Outside, a brouhaha was gathering down the hall. Javier headed right for it, all business in a flying white coat.
Emma followed behind. Two security guards dragged a screaming woman backward through a waiting area. People scrambled out of the way or stared at the scene like it was for their entertainment.
It took Emma a moment to recognize who the fuss was over, but then she saw the purple dreadlocks weaved into the woman’s long braids. “Dezi? What’re you doing?” Obviously she’d come for her sister. How she’d gotten here so fast was a question for a calmer time. Sure, she needed to settle down, but the guards didn’t have to be so rough with a grieving nineteen-year-old. “Hey!” Of course nobody listened to her, the guards still dragging, and Dez’rae still raising a ruckus. “Let her go!” Nothing.
“Stop,” Javier said with absolute calm, his low voice rolling through the room.
The guards stilled but kept hold of their captive. Dezi raised her hands, jewels on her nails catching the light as she waved them. Her breath huffed in and out like she was ready for a
fight. “My sister’s back there! Lemme go.” Her eyes caught Emma’s and recognition flashed through them. “She called me. Miss Em, tell them.”
“I did,” Emma insisted, not like anyone was listening to her.
Javier stepped right in front of her, hands clasped. “Ms. Williams, I’m Dr. Reyes. I work here.”
She glared at him, still struggling against the guards. “You gonna stop me too? I was told my sister’s here. I need to identify the…” Her breath caught as one hand went to her mouth. “Oh fuck…”
“How’d you get here so fast?” Emma asked, first thing she could think of to get her mind off the body.
“I was already here. When she didn’t come home, I… goddammit.” Tears came in earnest, flowing fast down her cheeks as she heaved for air.
“Dez’rae, please look at me.” Though firm, there was no condescension in Javier’s tone, and Dezi turned her angry gaze back at him. “I’m going to take you back to see her, but for me to do that, I need you to be calm.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but sure enough she started to chill. “You ain’t my mama.”
“No. I’m the person who’s going to get you into the morgue.” He paused. Dez’rae squeezed her eyes closed, hands clenching. Javier’s voice softened. “I’ll wait until you’re ready.”
Dez’rae took a rasping breath, and her body sagged as she did as he asked. Maybe his Idiot’s Guide to Raging Grief was a better book.
After a moment, the guards let her go. Dezi opened her eyes and stepped toward Javier. Her body was shaking, but she kept her voice in check. “Please show me my sister.”
Javier nodded at the guards. “Thanks. We’re okay.” One of them looked at Javier like he’d protest, but Javier ignored him and escorted Dezi to the hall with absolute authority. Emma followed, unsure what would happen next. Once back in the shadows of the hall, he muttered, “Don’t make it hard for people to help you.”